Variations
by the time and the tide
Summary: Vignettes from the Delta Quadrant
1. Space Pirates

As a reader, I've enjoyed exceedingly well written J/P stories for some time. The following is my humble offering as a writer. While our ship may not be the largest one on the sea, it's mighty and lovingly crafted.

Summary: one-shots based on prompts I've found or been given.

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended. Paramount and UPN own Star Trek Voyager. I merely play in their universe from time to time.

* * *

She looked around quickly to see if anything had been taken. Luckily, it seemed nothing had. Everything was intact. Apparently her collection of ancient loose-leaf books and assorted trinkets weren't of interest to their recent alien visitors. As captain, she would log this as another first contact situation. And first contact was never easy. In the Delta quadrant, however, it was downright impossible. Nothing ever went to plan. If it wasn't trading phaser fire, it was high tailing it around another area of space whose inhabits were none too pleased to see interlopers in their territory. The most recent skirmish found Voyager being boarded by a group of space pirates—yes. Space pirates. These particular pirates couldn't care less about weapons, replicators, or energy sources. The only thing they cared about was the mess hall. Neelix's food stocks took a hit, but other than that, nothing out of the ordinary was gone.

Their uninvited guests were efficient, she had to give them that. Voyager had been trudging through what she'd been told by another less-than-helpful alien race, was an uninhabited sector. Suddenly, their eventual captors popped out of a nearby nebula with hails of angry war cries, guns blazing. Voyager was immobilized in seconds. Raiders beamed aboard, rounding up the crew and herding them into main engineering, cargo bays, even empty holodecks. Within minutes, they'd been locked into makeshift cells.

Kathryn had been hustled into the brig with Mike Ayala and Naomi Wildman. While her crew, lead of course by Seven and B'Elanna, were busy taking down the primitive locking mechanisms across the ship, Kathryn sat on her hands in a cell, awkwardly comforting Naomi and watching Ayala's blood pressure silently rise. She was just about to suggest her cell mate punch a wall or perhaps burn their captors in effigy so to stave of his impending heart attack when the force field disappeared and Tuvok's voice, filled with about as much concern as she could ever remember hearing from him, informed her that they'd retaken the ship. Kathryn had given Naomi a brief, hopefully reassuring hug before heading to the bridge.

Security teams raced through the corridors around her, looking to apprehend the aliens. Unsurprisingly they were nowhere to found. The entire encounter had taken less than 10 minutes. Chakotay had, unfortunately, made a wrong move with one of their captors and came away with a broken nose for his trouble. She'd heard reports of similar, minor injuries (though the Commander continued to debate the "minor" label; she'd wisely kept out of it) but aside from a few black eyes and one broken nose, Voyager's crew survived this first-contact experience relatively unscathed. They would have to make a few extra stops to replenish their perishables. What did Tom call them, pit stops? They'd have to make a few pit stops at M-class planets to restock but if the only things they lost today were a few buckets of leola root, she'd call it a good day. A very good day, in fact.

"Anything missing?" The question floated in from the other side of the living room. Kathryn stooped down to grab another of her uniforms that had been strewn across the floor. These pirates were efficient thieves, but neat they were certainly not.

"Nope," she answered, folding up a wrinkled grey turtleneck, "Nothing that immediately jumps to mind, anyway."

"All your books still there?" he called, "What about your mother's tea set?" She nodded and whispered in reply "the tea set that we never use" before responding "All still here."

She moved around the bed to survey the damage when something sharp pierced through her shoe. Kathryn let out a very uncaptain-like yelp and swore under her breath, cradling her heel and hopping on one foot. She threw out an arm to steady herself on the dresser.

Perfect. Survive a random-alien boarding? Check. Suffer a completely random non- hostile alien related injury? Also check.

"What happened?!" a worried Tom rushed into the room, concern lining his face as he moved to her side. A small part of Kathryn warmed at his attention, briefly squeezing his steadying arm in thanks. A larger part of her swelled with frustration, shrugging him off and standing on her own two feet again. These damn boots. Whatever happened to the durable, all manner of pointy object resistant Starfleet footwear? She would definitely be lodging a formal complaint with whatever division was in charge of uniform accoutrements when they got home.

Undeterred, he lightly reached for her shoulders asking "Are you all right?"

Kathryn stopped an instinctive eye roll and indulged her overprotective helmsman for a moment before pulling away. "Assuming I don't get a tetanus infection in a few hours, I'm fine. And I found the missing pip from my spare set you lost a few weeks ago."

Concern shifted to questioning on Tom's face. "I lost?" he asked.

"Yes. The pip _you_ managed to lose, Lieutenant Paris." He narrowed his eyes in disbelief. "And if you wish to continue as a lieutenant for the foreseeable future I suggest you acknowledge your culpability in this matter and never speak of it again." Kathryn managed a stern expression for a few moments before smiling and patting her lover's cheek. She could tell Tom was trying to look put out. She tossed the offending item towards him. Tom caught it with ease. "That's one mystery solved," he said, quickly flipping and catching it himself before placing it on the dresser and walking away.

Kathryn returned to her current task—triaging the damage to their room. The bedding was a mess-whether by the space pirates or Tom, she may never know. And this fact alone made her pause and give-in to the eye roll. The pillows were shredded; the nightstand overturned; her books flung far and wide, intermixed with Tom's ubiquitous sports apparatuses. She approached the shambles of their closet, toeing away a long wooden stick of some kind and a black plastic block or...puck, was it? Tom no doubt told her at some point, and no doubt she'd nodded immediately forgetting the giddy explanation of his most recent holodeck obsession. Kathryn tried, she really did. She made it through baseball, golf, tennis, even something called cricket before conceding defeat. And it wasn't as if she purposefully tuned him out. She could hardly keep the rules for baseball straight, let alone the difference between field and ice hockey. Nodding and smiling were her only tools in self-preservation.

The heavy black puck rolled away, and Kathryn stood before the closet dismayed. Her paltry collection of civilian clothes hung limply in the back. She eyed them wearily. Tom's sports gear was easy enough to shove into a corner; their collective mass of red and black uniforms would take more work.

Before she could begin untangling the mountain of clothes, she heard a wail from the other room. Kathryn followed the sound and found Tom standing stock still in living room, his face frowning in a mix disbelief. Suddenly, he darted around the couch, flinging cushions and shoving the sofa away from the wall in a frantic search, repeating a plaintive "no" with each step.

"What is it?" Worry and annoyance sharpened her question.

Tom ignored her, continuing his search, his hands reaching for the back of his neck as he jerked around the room. She repeated her question again. And again received no reply.

"Lieutenant!" She thundered. That stopped him. Tom, the good soldier that he was, halted and looked at her. She beat her irritation back, sending the captain back into her mental ready room and shoving the caring girlfriend into the line of fire. Kathryn softened her expression and asked what had happened.

"The TV!" Tom answered, pointing to the empty space across from the sofa. Kathryn stared back at him, and then looked to the space; then back at Tom. The blank expression on her face gave her away

"The TV, the television. You know that big box that displays cartoons and westerns... we watch it on Friday nights?" He explained. Recognition finally dawned and she nodded, trying to muster some sadness at the loss of the unsightly contraption.

Tom barreled on, completely surprised by her disinterest in such a tragic loss. "Come on, it's early twentieth century. Practically irreplaceable! How did you not notice it was missing?"

Kathryn attempted to summon some sympathy.

When that failed she shook her head and shrugged, "sorry" her only response. Tom eventually tore his gaze from her and glared down at the space where the prized television once stood. Pensively, he said "How did they even get the thing out of our quarters? It's not like it was light, I mean I could barely lift it. And what, did they rig the doors to stay open..." he trailed off, crouching down to investigate the site more closely.

Kathryn rolled her eyes and walked back to the bedroom, leaving Tom to tackle this new mystery without her.


	2. Don't Worry Baby

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. I own neither Voyager nor any of its characters.

* * *

"Hey, Tom?"

He cranes his neck from the pilot's seat to acknowledge Harry calling from the back of the Flyer. His focus split between the final prep for launch and listening to _essential information_ his co-pilot would soon impart to him.

"There's an incoming message from the bridge."

Tom jerks his eyes back to the console, the unobtrusive blinking indicator indeed telling him someone from Deck 1 needs his attention. Harry cracks a grin and lets the doors swish shut, leaving Tom to read in peace.

"Thanks Har," he responds, only silence and the soft beeping of the consoles respond as Tom brings up the communication, his interest and heart-rate piqued at the _time-critical_ marker accompanying it.

Uh oh. This isn't just any message.

It's not just Chakotay reiterating his threat of bodily harm if Tom doesn't bring the Flyer back in pristine condition. Or Seven sending yet another unsolicited course correction or piece of "tactical advice" on competitive shuttle racing (as if he hadn't spent his entire Academy career ditching classes in order to drag race on Nova Squadron). Or Ensign Baytart "just making sure" he'd done that routine conn diagnostic correctly (as if anyone actually cared if he biffed it). Or B'Elanna cackling via text about how he's about to get his cocky ass handed to him on an intergalactic, Delta Quadrant-spiced platter (she could be right about that, but he didn't want to think negatively pre-race). Or even Tuvok telling him to leave at 18:00 hours exactly so he doesn't mess with Voyager's embarkation schedule (as if it really matters that they leave at 18:01 when _no one_ is docking on Voyager for the next 50 years).

Nope.

This message isn't just his friends saying good luck. This is a message from the bridge. From her. From her personal console.

Tom takes a deep, fortifying breath. He swallows once and pulls up the comm.

A single line of text appears. _Don't worry_ , _baby_.

Seconds fly by. He narrows his eyes in confusion while something hovers in the back of his mind. The phrase is familiar in an odd way. He can't place it.

It isn't that the phrase is unwelcome. He more than welcomes it, especially coming from her. It's just a surprise. She doesn't usually go with something so effusive, so obvious, so—well, nostalgic.

His finger hovers over the "respond" command when it clicks. Nostalgic. That's how he knows it. And just like that, the cabin is flooded with music, a crisp drum beat, guitars and voices harmonizing.

He can't stop the half smile brought on by the campy lyrics. Lyrics he'd hummed to himself weeks ago when she'd finally allowed him to enter the race, when he thought she'd been asleep and he'd poured over his computer perfecting the modifications for the Flyer.

 _Don't worry, baby_.

She'd serenaded him. Or, as close to a serenade as he'd likely get from his no-nonsense girlfriend.

He breathes out, the nerves he'd not-so-successfully repressed finally settling into a dull comfortable hum beneath his ribs.

"Love you too, Kath" he says, as the music plays on.


	3. Out of Time

_Another J/P one-shot coming at you. A sad take on "Resolutions." As always, I own nothing._

* * *

He knew it couldn't last forever. Nothing does. Despite living in a universe that never fails to laugh at him for forgetting it, he clung to the lie that some things do last. Maybe not forever, maybe not even as long as he wants. But that some things, like the remaining seconds of his wife's life, had to last longer than this.

They'd been marooned on this god-forsaken planet a long time. He lost count eventually, but for a while, he'd kept track. Kept pretty meticulous notes actually, for him. The length of a day, a month, a year. The turning of the seasons, his approximation of when summer ended and winter began. He recorded the rainfall; charted constellations; even tried to make some maps of the area where they'd decided, rather arbitrarily, to set up camp. He put it all down in his logs, even made hatch marks on a rock wall far away from their shelter as a physical reminder of their time. He'd hike to that rock when he couldn't stand being only other person on the planet she could talk to.

After a while, though, it got a little morose tracking the passage of time in personal logs no one would read, and marking each new year by the day they watched Voyager leave orbit and carry away all their hopes and dreams at full-impulse.

So he started keeping track of other things. Celebrating other days. Birthdays; holidays; made-up things. Like the day he discovered the lake. The time he tripped on a tree branch and she laughed at his black eye. The time he didn't wake up wondering what Harry was doing; how worried his mother was; how disappointed his father would always be. The afternoon she let him call her by her first name. The evening she held his hand. The day she moved out. The weeks she didn't speak to him. The hours they searched for her water-logged lab equipment. The night he stopped wearing his combadge. The night she stopped wearing hers. The morning he started building their house. The moment she looked up and smiled at him.

The too-short years they spent together.

In his mind, he knew that time would end. Something would happen - it always did. Something terrible and unexpected would take them by surprise. She'd get caught outside in a flash flood. Some wild, hungry thing would find him at the lake. Or something inevitable and completely ordinary would slowly close in around them. Their equipment would finally break. They'd eat something they shouldn't have. Time would find them here on ass-end of the Delta Quadrant, and age would have its reckoning.

One of them would get sick. And all the tears and pep talks and resigned, soft looks in the universe wouldn't give him the medical knowledge to save her.

So he sits at her bedside. In the room they'd shared, in the house he built. Holding her hand and reminding her how important she is, how much he loves her. Recounting all the ways she kept him going. From those first few years finding a life on Voyager, to fighting tooth and nail (and even her) to make a new life here on this New Earth. Retelling the joyous, melancholy stories. How brief and far away those stories seem as he recounts the most important moments of his life during the final moments of hers.

He watches the light dim in her eyes, and damns himself for knowing how to fly a goddamn space ship at warp 10 but not how to save his wife.

Then, Tom feels her breath sputter in and out. They both know they're out of time.

Kissing her forehead, he looks down at the grey resigned eyes of the woman he's followed half his life. She manages a weak smile and fingers the hem of his shirt a moment, before falling away.

A hot choke clogs his throat, but he doesn't blink away until he sees the final light go out in her eyes. His own chest slams shut, and he grips the hypo spray in his other hand.

Moving the metal cylinder against his throat, Tom depresses the button.

He feels the final seconds of his own life tick by.

She told him once she'd be the first to leave. She's the explorer, remember. Even though he knows she'll hate him a little for choosing to leave with her, for giving up, he thinks she'll understand. They wouldn't be here without her, and he decided a long time ago that wherever she went, he did too.

"See ya soon, Kath," he whispers against her forehead and closes his eyes.


End file.
